I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but one of the reason’s I’ve started this blog is to motivate myself to work on my movie. So I think that today is a good time to talk about motivation.
So, characters need some sort of motivation. Whether it’s to avenge their father’s death and right claim the thrown of Denmark, or pulling out that trick play in the bottom of the 9th to win the Indian’s their first penant in years,* characters need a reason for being. The characters in this piece are giving me a hard time because giving them a motivation isn’t as concrete as it can be. What I mean is that a strong part of being a professional funny person means that you don’t have a finite end goal. There isn’t a corner office to earn, there isn’t a promotion to work for, and there certainly isn’t a comedy corporate ladder to climb. So what motivates these people to make other people laugh?
Well, laughter itself is a big motivator. There is something about the sound of laughter in people that makes me want to make them laugh more. It’s hard to describe (although hopefully it’s conveyed in the movie), but there’s something really magical about knowing what makes someone laugh and being able to do something about it. And what’s really interesting is that the people I talk to about this seem to have the same kind of thought about it: Being funny is something you are, not something you learn. So knowing how to do all of this is some sort of innate inexplicable attribute of funny people that motivates them to do it more. This makes very little sense, I realize, but again, it will hopefully be explained better in the movie.
I could write more about it. But I don’t feel like it.
*Points for those that can guess what I’m referencing. Not a lot of points, seeing as how one is one of the greatest plays ever written, and the other is Major League.